Research Agenda to Facilitate Community Participation In HIV Vaccine Research: A Participatory Approach

This article reports on a participatory process to generating a research agenda to guide research on community participation in HIV vaccine research. Community members representing stakeholder parties involved in the HIV vaccine research enterprise were invited to participate in the process. Fourty-five participants participated in the process and we used interactive techniques to stimulate discussion and interaction between community members at different levels of the HIV vaccine research enterprise. Through the process we generated a locally grounded research agenda to guide research on community participation in HIV vaccine research that originates out of the experiences, challenges and concerns of community members.     

Student Nurses' Experiences of The Clinical Psychiatric Learning Environment in an Education Institution

This study investigated lived experiences of student nurses working in a clinical psychiatric learning environment in South Africa. Participants were 29 fourth-year student nurses in the clinical psychiatric learning environment at a nursing education institution (females = 27; males =2). They engaged in focus group discussion on their experiences of the clinical psychiatric learning environment. The data were thematically analyzed using Tesch's method of open coding. The student nurses experienced the environment as growth enhancing on a professional and personal level.     

The role of educational psychologists in promoting ethical research conducted with children: an exploratory study

This study explored perceptions of educational psychologists on their role in promoting ethical research involving children. Participants were 10 South African educational psychologists (females = 60%; males = 40%) from mostly public services (90%). Data on their perceived roles in research ethics monitoring and implementation were collected through individual interviews and a brief questionnaire. The data were thematically analysed. Findings suggest that educational psychologists have a role in protecting children from harm during research participation while also monitoring benefits due to the children. A social justice perspective appears to explain the role of educational psychologists in research protection for children.     

Psychological Strengths as Predictors of Postgraduate Students' Academic Achievement

This study sought to predict students' Grade Point Average (GPA) from their personal sense of coherence, locus of control, hope and research self-efficacy. Participants were 429 postgraduate students at a large South African university (males = 86, females = 311, age range = 20 to 53, mean age = 30, SD = 6.77). They completed measures of sense of coherence, locus of control, hope orientation and research self-efficacy. Data were analysed using logistic regression. Results revealed that only research self-efficacy significantly predicted academic achievement. Although of small practical significance, it seems that students' beliefs about their own potential and abilities regarding research could influence their success to some degree. It is recommended that research self-efficacy, together with other psychological strengths, be further investigated as a predictor of academic success.     

Meeting Them “Where They're At”

Abstract

Child maltreatment is associated with serious psycho-social difficulties and enormous direct and indirect societal costs. As such, it is an area for which new and promising interventions are highly important. The purpose of this exploratory research is to examine intensive school-based psychodynamic therapy for severely maltreated children experiencing significant difficulties, by obtaining perceptions of therapeutic effectiveness by the children's parents, teachers and therapists. Themes include: therapists', parents', and teachers' perceptions of child's changes; parental perceptions of therapy and relationship with the therapist; therapists' perception of relationship with parents; school as the location of therapy; teacher-therapist relationship; and the child's academic status.     

The Limitations of “Vulnerability” as a Protection for Human Research Participants

Vulnerability is one of the least examined concepts in research ethics. Vulnerability was linked in the Belmont Report to questions of justice in the selection of subjects. Regulations and policy documents regarding the ethical conduct of research have focused on vulnerability in terms of limitations of the capacity to provide informed consent. Other interpretations of vulnerability have emphasized unequal power relationships between politically and economically disadvantaged groups and investigators or sponsors. So many groups are now considered to be vulnerable in the context of research, particularly international research, that the concept has lost force. In addition, classifying groups as vulnerable not only stereotypes them, but also may not reliably protect many individuals from harm. Certain individuals require ongoing protections of the kind already established in law and regulation, but attention must also be focused on characteristics of the research protocol and environment that present ethical challenges.     

Feminist Issues in Couple Therapy

Abstract

The authors reviewed the feminist couple therapy literature from 1995 to 2006. They summarized this large body of work into several key themes. The first revealed that feminist couples therapists are continuing to discuss and deconstruct gender issues in couple therapy. The second showed that feminists believe that therapists should be educated both academically and personally about culture and diversity so as to support couples in their therapy around their own issues of diversity as well as learning to deal with issues of social justice as a couple. In the third theme, the authors introduced readers to feminists' emphasis on connection and empathy within couple and sex therapy. And, in the fourth, the authors explored feminists' work with power in couple therapy as they applied to couple therapy in general as well as around the specific topics of: balancing family and work and therapy for familial violence.     

Applicability of systems philosophy to the futuristic science of education: Dissident vistas

This dissertation is a futuristic exploration into “dissident vistas” in pedagogical science and, in fact, in human sciences in general. The scope of educational research is often narrowed and distorted by the sociopolitical needs of the established academic elite. The mainstream of the present tradition of pedagogical theory and research has failed to focus on the phenomenon of education as a whole in order to open new perspectives for its beneficial influence on the society. There has been, for decades now, a growing need for education to become a change agent —a strategic tool for serious search after goals and models relevant to the future progress of the human society. Proper new scientific attempts are necessary if education is to be seriously considered as such a change agent. It is the firm conviction of the author that any attitude of today's educationalists towards their work, other than that of serious obligation towards the future of mankind, would be ethically unsound. Certain ambiguity has always surrounded the concept of education: is education a whole system or is it a vague set of very different things (human aspirations, social conditions, intentional input, contextual circumstances, natural processes etc.)? This ambiguity must be reduced, if any explicit discussion of the role of education is sought. In pedagogical science, and indeed in most human sciences, there are very few ontological premises, and certainly no axioms, that the majority of scientists would generally agree on. Systematic ontological and epistemological study of the phenomenon of education is almost nonexistent. It is to this end that this research is hoped to contribute.     

Sympathy for the Devil

Abstract

This article describes the personal and professional experiences of the author while working as a mental health trainer in Serbia. In addition, various approaches to victims and perpetrators are reconsidered, along with the ethical implications of this work. The relationship between working with violence in a war zone and in a peaceful society is also explored.